For most of my life, the whip-poor-will was just a name to me.  I knew nothing at all about the bird, what it looked like, where it lived, or why it had the strange name ‘whip-poor-will.’  But then we moved to Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley in the 1990s.  And I got acquainted with the whip-poor-will.  I was amazed.

     On summer nights, with the windows open wide, we would hear the whip-poor-will, deep in the forest.  And then I knew how the bird got its name.  It could be ’understood’ as calling “whip poor Will” (not a very friendly message) with a strong accent on the “Will.”  And I use the word ‘call’ rather than ’sing,’ to describe the bird’s sound.  It is not a melodious warble, but more of an insistent cry.

     And I do mean insistent!  The bird cries, “Whip poor Will, Whip poor Will, Whip poor Will,” and on and on and on, without a moment’s pause between any syllable.  I remember one night when my son and I, incredulous that the bird could go on so long without stopping, decided to count the number of “Whip poor Will” cries without a break.  We counted more than 40!   I have since read of someone who spent a nine-hour night counting the calls of a single male whip-poor-will.  The total?  20,898!  The whip-poor-will can actually be an annoyance to someone trying to sleep on a summer night. 

     Now that it is ‘whip-poor-will season,’ I like to step out onto the deck every night to listen for the bird’s call.  It almost always comes from the same spot, down the hill in the forest.  Knowing that whip-poor-will populations are in decline, I find it comforting to hear a few bars of the insistent call before I go to bed.

       The whip-poor-will is a reclusive bird, a nocturnal forest dweller.  Consequently, it is seldom spotted.  In fact, only once have I seen a whip-poor-will.  One summer night in the 1990s, I stepped out onto the deck and noticed a large, dark shape, motionless atop the deck railing.  It was a whip-poor-will, looking so settled on our deck railing, it could have been sitting on a nest of eggs.

     I have been curious about these nocturnal neighbors of ours, so I decided to do a little research.  Here is what I learned: 

     The whip-poor-will measures about 10 inches from beak to tail.  Its coloring, a dried leaf-looking brown, mottled with black and a little white, is perfect camouflage for the birds’ forest environment.  Active at night, the whip-poor-will feeds exclusively on moths and other night insects it catches on the wing. 

     The whip-poor-will has no nest;  it lays its eggs, usually two, on the ground, and hides them under dried leaves.   Whip-poor-wills sleep during the day, usually on the forest ground.  But they may sometimes be found, by day, resting on a tree branch, parallel to it.

     The whip-poor-will is a migrating bird, but little is known about its migration habits.  During the summer breeding season, the birds have a broad North American range, from southern Canada south as far as Georgia and northern Louisiana, from Kansas to the east coast.  They also breed in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.  The birds winter in Florida and farther south.

          If you’ve never heard a whip-poor-will, I encourage you to click on the link below.  I think you’ll enjoy it! 

http://www.nenature.com/WhipPoorWill.htm  

     And here is a photo of the seldom-seen bird.–April Moore

photo by Lloyd Spitalnik

 

   

    

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